Hariri visits UAE as Saudis up ante against Lebanon
BEIRUT: In a new twist in the saga of Lebanon’s prime minister who resigned over the weekend from Saudi Arabia, Saad Hariri’s office said he visited the United Arab Emirates briefly yesterday for a meeting with a top official before returning to the kingdom. Much is unknown about Hariri’s unexpected resignation, which stunned the Lebanese, threw its government into disarray and prompted a frenzy of speculation.
One of the rumors is that Hariri has been under house arrest in Saudi Arabia, or in some way forced to do the Saudis’ bidding. His brief visit to the UAE could appear to dispel that, except that the Gulf federation is a close Saudi ally - the two countries have been spearheading a war in Yemen since 2015 against the country’s Shiite rebels who are backed by Iran. Abu Dhabi’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nayhan met Hariri and tweeted a photo, saying they discussed “brotherly ties” and the situation in Lebanon, without elaborating. Hariri’s office also said the two discussed the situation in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia yesterday sent its harshest threat to the Lebanese government, dominated by the Shiite group Hezbollah, accusing it of declaring war against the kingdom through support that Hezbollah allegedly provides to Yemen’s rebels. Saudi Minister for Gulf Affairs Thamer Al-Sabhan said the situation was “very sensitive and worrying” and that the Saudi patience over Hezbollah was running thin. “The Party of Satan has become a tool of killing and terrorism for the kingdom,” he told the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV, a play on Hezbollah’s name, which in Arabic means the Party of God.
Both Hezbollah and the Houthis, as Yemen’s Shiite rebels are known, have denied any role by the Lebanese group in the war in the Arabian Peninsula country. “The Party of Satan is represented in the Lebanese government and the government should be aware of such dangers,” Sabhan said. “The Lebanese government will be dealt with as a government that has declared war against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Sabhan added that the Lebanese people should be aware of the dangers “before we reach a point of no return.”
In Lebanon, President Michel Aoun held consultations yesterday with leading politicians over the crisis. Aoun has not called for consultations with parliamentary blocs on the formation of a new Cabinet, saying he will wait until Hariri returns home so that he can hear from him in person about the reasons that made him resign. Credit ratings agency Moody’s warned that Hariri’s resignation threatens to disrupt “the fragile political balance in place.” It added that a drawn-out political stalemate less than a month after the government passed its first budget since 2005 “would undermine recent institutional improvements and expose the banking system to a loss in confidence.”
“The Saudis appear to have decided that the best way to confront Iran is to start in Lebanon,” a European diplomat said. It is not clear what comes next: Saudibacked efforts to weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon failed badly a decade ago, ending with a bout of Sunni-Shiite
fighting on the streets of Beirut that only underlined Hezbollah’s military dominance. The regional struggle moved elsewhere in recent years, notably neighboring Syria where years of Saudi investment in rebel groups fighting President Bashar Al-Assad failed to withstand direct military intervention by Iran and Hezbollah.
In Iraq, Tehran-backed militias and Iranian commanders have often seemed as powerful as the USbacked Iraqi military, most recently in an operation to retake Kirkuk from Kurdish forces. So emboldened was Iran that top Iranian official Ali Akbar Velayati trumpeted his regional alliance’s success from Beirut last Friday, declaring victories in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. His statement to the media after a meeting with Hariri was seen as a major provocation to regional Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia. Hariri left for Saudi Arabia immediately afterwards, cancelling previously scheduled engagements and catching even his closest advisors off guard the next day with a declaration first broadcast by Saudi-owned media.
Hezbollah was established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to fight Israeli troops in Lebanon. Its last major war with Israel was in 2006, since when Hezbollah has grown stronger. While Sabhan vowed that Hezbollah would be forced back into “its caves” in southern Lebanon, any Saudi military action in Lebanon - such as air strikes - would come as a major surprise. Political paralysis and tension is however a big threat to an already stagnant economy, and could derail next year’s parliamentary elections - Lebanon’s first since 2009. Policymakers have scrambled to calm concern over the financial stability of the heavily indebted state. They say the Lebanese pound pegged against the dollar at the same rate for 20 years - is stable.
Hariri was spearheading efforts to garner international aid to help Lebanon deal with the strain of hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees, or a quarter of the population. Leaders on all sides say there should be no further escalation. Both Hezbollah and Hariri’s Future Movement have worked to contain Sunni-Shiite tensions during the war in neighboring Syria. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has called for calm and patience in the face of Hariri’s resignation. Okab Sakr, a member of Hariri’s Future Movement, noted that protests in solidarity with Hariri had been cancelled to avoid trouble. — Agencies